Fanhattan aims to be every iPad owners' central hub for deep-diving into Hollywood content. The free iPad app lets users buy and rent movies and television shows, view cast and crew profiles, purchase related swag, view trailers, and much more—all from the convenience of Apple's slate. Fanhattan’s slick interface and integration with other entertainment apps that you have installed on your iPad makes it easy to find what you want to watch regardless of the service where it resides. The app works well and has plenty of attractive features that will entice movie and TV fan, but studios’ streaming video licensing limitations haunt Fanhattan, as they do services such as Hulu Plus ($7.99 per month, 4 stars) and Netflix ($7.99 per month, 4 stars).

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Simple Design and InterfaceFanhattan’s home screen (which features a dark, minimalist design highlighted by a starburst effect) beckons you to investigate its movie and television offerings courtesy of two rectangular-shaped panels that rotate highlighted content within their respective categories. The movies panel, for example, showcased Thor, Hot Tub Time Machine, and X-Men: First Class; the television panel showcased Friday Night Lights, Glee, Dexter, and Mad Men. Swiping from right to left revealed the full television panel, which is tucked away off to the right of the movies section by default. I would’ve much preferred having both boxes fully on screen at once, but that’s a relatively minor gripe.

The interface’s upper-right corner houses a tool bar that lets me visit the Help area, sign into Facebook or Twitter for sharing information, or key a term into a search box. Fanhattan, coolly, displays content on the fly, so if you type "Bat" into the search engine, the app retrieves The Dark Knight (which is wisely tagged as a Batman movie), Batman Begins, Batman Returns, Battleground, Batteries Not included, and many more. Swiping the icon row from right reveals even more results. Beneath this row of icons is a lot of empty space—empty space that quickly fills when you bring a finger to a content icon.

The Fanhattan ExperienceTapping The Dark Knight icon filled the empty space beneath the icon row with promotional art, a "Watch Now" section, and a partial synopsis. Tapping the "Discover" icon shifted Fanhattan into full screen mode which takes visual cues from Apple’s Cover Flow. With swipeable panels, Watch Now, wisely, is positioned front and center. This panel presented me with the option to watch The Dark Knight’s trailer, rent the movie from iTunes ($2.99 for standard definition, $3.99 for HD), or buy it outright from Apple's store for $9.99. I rented and later purchased the movie from iTunes, and enjoyed smooth playback in both instances.

Watch Now also contains icons for ABC, Best Buy CinemaNow, BlockBuster Video, Crackle, Hulu Plus, Netflix, PlayStation Network, Netflix, Vudu, and Zune. Depending on the movie/tv show, and the licensing agreement, one or several icons will be highlighted, revealing the source of the content stream. Tapping an icon launches the corresponding iPad app—very cool. I couldn’t view The Dark Knight in this manner, but I did check out Clerks and Pulp Fiction. Both movies streamed to my iPad (via Hulu Plus) over my home network without any significant hiccups. You can customize which streaming video service app icons are displayed, so that the interface isn’t cluttered with unused icons.

Other options let me read The Dark Knight synopsis (with the option to log into Facebook and “Liking” the movie), skim Rotten Tomatoes movie reviews (you can switch this to Metacritic, if you'd prefer), check out the Fan Feed (which you can use to email a link to the Fanhattan iTunes page to friends), buy soundtrack music (you can purchase individual tracks for 99 cents or the entire album for $9.99), purchase gear from Amazon, and view Cast & Crew listings, Video Clips, and Similar Movies. I was surprised by the lack of IMDB presence, considering Fanhattan’s tight integration with Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes. These features elevate Fanhattan from what it could’ve been—a simple aggregator—to a destination that you’ll want to return to frequently.

A Few QuirksI found the Similar Movies section hit or miss; it included other comic book movies (Thor), but had some odd selections for related crime drama (The Outsiders). I also saw a few odd recommendations when I fired up Pulp Fiction’s listing: The first movie displayed was The Lion King, and the second was a concert film by Linkin Park! Obviously, the recommendation engine needs tweaks. By logging in with your Facebook account, you can see the shows that your friends have listed as their favorites on the popular social network, but the sync process can take a very long time. Note: You only have to sit through the sync process once.

Should You Download Fanhattan for iPad?Fanhattan (for iPad) is an excellent app for those who use multiple services (iTunes, Crackle, Hulu Plus, Netflix, etc) to seek and discover streaming movies and TV programming. It may not appeal to those who use one service, but for those of us who have multiple streaming entertainment accounts, Fanhattan fills a void.

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